Immumem develops engineered memory CAR-T/NK cell therapies that combat highly lethal solid tumors with 5-10x better relapse control at one-fifth the cost, targeting a $3B pancreatic cancer market.
Immumem develops engineered memory CAR-T/NK cell therapies that combat highly lethal solid tumors with 5-10x better relapse control at one-fifth the cost, targeting a $3B pancreatic cancer market.
Immumem Therapeutics is addressing the critical challenge of high mortality rates in solid tumors, which account for 90% of all cancer cases but have poor treatment outcomes due to aggressive relapse. Current therapies—including conventional treatments like chemotherapy, radiation, surgery, and even first-generation cell therapies—fail to effectively control tumor relapse, resulting in mortality rates exceeding 75% in the US (85% in California) and 90% globally for cancers like pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.
The company is specifically targeting two fundamental biological challenges that limit the effectiveness of current therapies:
Immune Cell Exhaustion - Current cell therapy approaches suffer from T/NK cell exhaustion, which leads to sub-optimal initial tumor control. When immune cells become exhausted in the tumor microenvironment, they lose their ability to effectively attack cancer cells from the start.
Lack of Immunological Memory - The absence of robust immunological memory in current cell therapy products results in poor long-term persistence and an inability to prevent relapse. This is a separate issue from immune cell exhaustion and explains why even initially successful treatments often fail to provide durable responses.
These limitations manifest in clinical outcomes where current CAR-T therapies are unable to combat relapse beyond 8 months, and NK cell therapies fail after 19 months. Even when conventional treatments show initial success (such as surgical resection), more than 80% of patients ultimately die from relapse.
Immumem Therapeutics' novel MemGen platform aims to revolutionize treatment outcomes by leveraging enhanced immunological memory in iPSC-derived CAR-T and CAR-NK cells, specifically engineered to overcome both immune cell exhaustion (for better initial tumor control) and establish strong immunological memory (for improved relapse prevention and long-term persistence).
-Secured a soft commitment of $250K from an angel along with a potential check of $25K–$75K from another.
-Preclinical in vitro studies demonstrating our MemGen platform’s ability to achieve 2–5× better initial tumor control and 5–10× improved relapse prevention compared to current therapies.
-Co-founders have combined 24+ years in R&D, startup IPOs, and immunological memory breakthroughs.
